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Your sales team needs to forecast better. What are the top-rated tools to help them do it?

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Sales forecasting is a crucial skill for any sales team, as it helps them plan their activities, allocate their resources, and measure their performance. However, forecasting can also be challenging, especially in uncertain and dynamic markets. That's why many sales teams rely on tools that can help them forecast better, based on data, insights, and best practices. In this article, we'll explore some of the top-rated tools that can help your sales team improve their forecasting accuracy and efficiency.

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1 What is sales forecasting?

Sales forecasting is the process of estimating the future sales of a product or service, based on historical data, current trends, market conditions, and other factors. Sales forecasting helps sales teams set realistic and achievable goals, align their strategies and tactics, and track their progress and results. Sales forecasting also helps sales managers allocate their budget, resources, and time, and identify potential risks and opportunities.

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Thayanandan Samiappan Kandiar

★ Providing Financial Strategies ? Insurance Advisor ? Estate Planner ★ Business Development Manager at Obsnap Group
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The right tools can help your sales team predict sales more accurately by analyzing historical sales data, current market trends, and other relevant factors. I prefer using Zoho, as my team and myself we are using it

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Naresh Pillai

Business Consultant - Salon Professional Hair & Skin Care
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One of the most vital aspect for an organisation for business sucess. Procurement of raw materials, production planning, manpower planning, distribution spread plan, stock inventory plan, P&L, all are in some way or the other connected to sales forecasting therfefore vital. Therefore the estimates should be based on data, consider the current trends and all other aspects that may lead to achieving set objectives. This in turn would help in resource planning and help sales team to set realistic achievable goals. Budgets therefore can be allocated and aligned to achieve teh set objectives

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2 Why is sales forecasting important?

Sales forecasting is important for several reasons. First, it helps sales teams align their expectations with reality, and avoid overestimating or underestimating their sales potential. Second, it helps sales teams optimize their sales pipeline, by focusing on the most promising leads and opportunities, and avoiding wasting time and effort on low-quality prospects. Third, it helps sales teams improve their customer relationships, by delivering on their promises, meeting their deadlines, and providing value. Fourth, it helps sales teams communicate their performance and results to their stakeholders, such as senior management, investors, and partners.

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Nerajan kc

Unblocking Product Bottlenecks | B2B | Startups & AI
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Sales forecasting is crucial as it aligns expectations, optimizes resource allocation, improves customer relationships, and enables effective communication of performance to stakeholders.

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3 What are the challenges of sales forecasting?

Sales forecasting is a complex process that involves many variables, assumptions, and uncertainties. Common challenges include lack of data, consistency, accuracy, and accountability. For example, sales teams may not have enough or reliable data to base their forecasts on, such as historical sales or market size. Additionally, they may not have a standardized or agreed-upon methodology to forecast their sales. Moreover, they may not be able to account for all the factors that can affect their sales, such as seasonality or customer churn. Furthermore, sales teams may not be motivated or incentivized to provide accurate and realistic forecasts, or to update them regularly.

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Atul Raghunathan

Founder and CRO at Hyperbound (YC S23) | AI Sales Roleplay
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One huge challenge I've noticed with forecasting, is how well your reps are able to catch on to the qualification level of the buyer. Sometimes, reps aren't able to flag out a tire-kicker, or someone who was forced by their manager to get a quote. Building out training to help your reps identify and address these scenarios will dramatically help improve your sales forecasting.

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Naresh Pillai

Business Consultant - Salon Professional Hair & Skin Care
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Sales forecasting happens to be one of teh most vital but complex process which would involve many variables and therefore very important to consider all of them and then set out to lay down the numericals. The most common challenge that an organisation faces is lack of accurate reliable data and unforseen situations. However, in my opinion, if the number of doors to be opened can be realistically defined and determined, sales forecasting can be aligned with the business plan by tweaking any of the levers in case there is a need for the same.

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4 What are the benefits of using sales forecasting tools?

Sales forecasting tools are software applications that can help sales teams overcome some of their challenges and enhance the benefits of sales forecasting. These tools can provide data-driven and objective forecasts, based on historical and real-time data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence. They also offer consistent and transparent forecasts, based on a common framework and terminology that is visible to all relevant parties. Additionally, these tools provide accurate and reliable forecasts, based on multiple scenarios, variables, and assumptions that are updated automatically and frequently. Finally, they can provide actionable and insightful forecasts, based on recommendations, suggestions, and alerts that are integrated with other sales tools and platforms.

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5 What are the top-rated sales forecasting tools?

The market is full of sales forecasting tools, each with their own features, functionalities, and pricing. According to user reviews and ratings, some of the top-rated ones are HubSpot Sales Hub, Salesforce Sales Cloud, and Zoho CRM. HubSpot Sales Hub is a comprehensive sales platform that includes a sales forecasting tool, along with CRM, email marketing, sales automation, and reporting. It allows sales teams to create and customize their forecasts based on their sales pipeline, deal stages, and probabilities. Salesforce Sales Cloud provides a sales forecasting tool as well as lead management, opportunity management, contract management, and order management. It enables teams to generate and view forecasts based on their sales hierarchy, territories, and roles. Lastly, Zoho CRM is a cloud-based CRM system that offers a sales forecasting tool in addition to contact management, deal management, workflow automation, and social media integration. It helps teams to create and track forecasts based on their sales cycle, products, and expected revenue. All of these tools provide insights and tips on how to improve forecasts as well as the ability to compare forecasts with actuals and adjust them manually or automatically.

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Daniel Ku

Helping B2B companies drive revenue through go-to-market operations.
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I've used Gong in the past for forecasting. It's great because it provides visibility into deal activities like emails, calls and meetings. Plus, you can dig into each call to hear the objections, timelines or key pain points. We were trying to weave in MEDDIC methodology into our sales process and Gong helped us identify which steps were covered during calls.

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Naresh Pillai

Business Consultant - Salon Professional Hair & Skin Care
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There is no one size, fits all tool that can be used as a sales forecasting tool. Getting to the basics is the best option depending upon what business you are into. Determine the doors to be opened and the business to be generated per door considering the growth required most importantly and then number of sku's currently available and sku's to be launched and when it is to be launched. Arrive at a feasable, achievable & realistic figure. Allocate skuwise sales numbers in value and units. Rationalize the entire exercise per sales personnel and then put it together to arrive at a forecast in line with the organisational goals.

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6 How to choose the best sales forecasting tool for your team?

When selecting the best sales forecasting tool for your team, you should consider several factors, such as your team size, budget, objectives, and preferences. Furthermore, the tool should be easy to use and require minimal training and support. Additionally, it should be integrated with your existing sales tools and platforms, such as CRM, email, calendar, and social media. Moreover, the tool should be customizable to fit your specific sales process, methodology, and terminology. In addition to that, it should offer features and functionalities like data sources, analytics, scenarios, recommendations, and alerts. Furthermore, it should be fast and reliable with accurate and timely forecasts. Finally, the tool must be secure and compliant with data protection and privacy policies and regulations.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Gavin Kowalski

Building elite sales professionals | 25 years in Tech Sales and Leadership | Gold Accredited Sales Coach | Click the ?? to get notified when I post!
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For forecasting, whilst there are great platforms, its hard to beat a very strong underlying sales methodology and qualification frame work. MEDDPICC is very popular at present, but by no means on its own with tools like SCOTSMAN etc. MEDDPICC is great, because it is binary. You eitehr know the information or not. Constantly qualify as you go through the process, building a picture as you progress. What ever platform you implement, ensure that it aligns with the way you sell and the qualification frame work that you use.

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Your sales team needs to forecast better. What are the top-rated tools to help them do it?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 What is sales forecasting?

2 Why is sales forecasting important?

3 What are the challenges of sales forecasting?

4 What are the benefits of using sales forecasting tools?

5 What are the top-rated sales forecasting tools?

6 How to choose the best sales forecasting tool for your team?

7 Here’s what else to consider

Sales Coaching

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Your sales team needs to forecast better. What are the top-rated tools to help them do it?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 What is sales forecasting?

2 Why is sales forecasting important?

3 What are the challenges of sales forecasting?

4 What are the benefits of using sales forecasting tools?

5 What are the top-rated sales forecasting tools?

6 How to choose the best sales forecasting tool for your team?

7 Here’s what else to consider

Sales Coaching

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